SELCAT : Selective Competency, Accountability, Transparency?
The People’s Parliament
I remember watching video clips and reading reports of the probing investigation conducted by the Selangor legislative assembly select committee on competency, accountability and transparency (Selcat) into the spending by the Khir Toyo administration and remarking to someone that perhaps MACC could learn a thing or two about getting at the truth.
Then, the select committee appeared to be armed to the teeth with facts and figures to allow for some very effective examination of state civil servants who went before the committee.
I fear now that I may have spoken too soon.
Malaysiakini reported yesterday that Selcat chairperson YB Teng Chang Khim announced, after three days of public hearings, that there was no evidential basis to support the allegations of corruption against the state government-owned sand mining company, Kumpulan Semesta Sdn Bhd.
“All we have is one person claiming that there is a demand made by someone else. And it is unfair for the person who was complained against (since the claimant has not acted further). So where is the scandal? I never saw any scandal,” he told a press conference after today’s hearing ended this afternoon. At the moment (these complaints) are just contract issues. These are to be determined by the courts, not by us”, Teng is reported to have said.
Let’s be fair and see this conclusion in a fuller context.
On 18th May, 2010, Selcat announced that it would hold a public hearing into allegations of corrupt practices by KSSB, from 2nd to 4th June, between 10am to 1pm on each day.
The first thing to note is that if the committee had indeed kept to the time allocated to this public hearing, the entire investigation was concluded in 9 hours.
Let’s not be misled by the reported ‘three days of public hearings’.
The scope of the intended public hearing can be discerned from the following statement of Darren Ong, the private secretary to Teng :
“Selcat will investigate the matter from the administration aspect to determine if there were weaknesses in administration which must be addressed and improved by the state government to ensure that KSSB adheres to the policies and instructions of the state. Selcat hopes that all parties would grant their full cooperation during the public hearing and present relevant documents to expedite investigations“ .
I cannot help but observe that there is no mention whatsoever about looking into the allegations of corruption.
The second observation I will make is that Selcat expressed the hope that all parties would fully cooperate and present all relevant documents to make for an expeditious investigation.
All this has been captured in the Malaysiakini report dated 18th May, 2010.
Two days before the commencement of the public hearing, YB Manikavasagam, at a press conference at his office, released a video recording taken by a former KSSB contractor, Zahar Rusuli, of alleged illegal sand-mining operations being carried out in Rasa, Hulu Selangor.
Zahar, too, attended and spoke at the press conference.
Both Malaysiakini and FreeMalaysiaToday reported on this press conference and the revelations made, but I would urge you to give the second report mentioned a close reading.
I want to reproduce the following explanation Zahar gave of the video recording he had made, as reported in FreeMalaysiaToday.
Zahar explained that in January, he went to the site where alleged illegal sand-mining was taking place, armed with a video camera and took footage of the operations going on.
“By a stroke of luck, I suddenly realised that officials from KSSB and the land office were also present at the area, so I filmed them entering their vehicles. The workers later told me that the officials had met privately at the site’s cabin inside the area.”, Zahar said.
“I sent the copy of my video to the menteri besar’s office, KSSB and also the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). I have since received two threats from people who were hired by Alex and another person called Dr Zul.” , Zahar added.
YB Manikavasagam has the following video clip on his blog. A phone call to him yesterday confirms this is the same video clip that was disclosed at the press conference.
